Car-Free in PVDhttps://carfreepvd.wordpress.com
Living without a car in Providence, RISat, 31 Jan 2015 21:54:10 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/c4e7437acd2044b7112f6b7ab304cbf7?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngCar-Free in PVDhttps://carfreepvd.wordpress.com
Optimized Sharrow Usagehttps://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/optimized-sharrow-usage/
https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/optimized-sharrow-usage/#commentsTue, 06 Jan 2015 12:50:07 +0000http://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/?p=1388Continue reading →]]>The term “sharrow” is a portmanteau of “shared lane marking arrow” or something like that. It’s a bike symbol and a couple of chevrons painted on a street intended to indicate the optimal place for a cyclist to ride.

It’s the weird looking thing in the foreground

Here’s what the Providence Bike Plan has to say about sharrows which it calls a “shared lane marking” or SLM for short:

The marking is intended to assist bicyclists with lateral positioning in a shared travel lane. The marking also encourages bicyclists to ride outside of the door zone of parked cars and to discourage wrong way riding. The marking also alerts road users to the lateral position bicyclists are likely to occupy in the travelled way. … SLMs can be used to connect short gaps between sections of bike lanes. SLMs can also be used in a right-turn only lane to assist bicyclists traveling straight through an intersection.

There was a time when I thought that sharrows were an interesting development, perhaps a new type of cycling infrastructure that could be successfully used as part of a city’s bike plan when full bike lanes weren’t possible. I even wrote a blog post when I saw the first ones in Providence over 3 years ago.

The Providence Bike Plan was released about a year ago. The best discussion I’ve seen about it is over at Greater City Providence in this post. For various reasons, I did not participate in the discussion at the time the plan was released. Mostly because I was so disappointed in it and it seemed completely worthless to try to do anything about it. But now we are seeing the city implement the plan and it’s clear that all we are going to get is sharrows.

The first sharrows I saw in town were on Gano street back in 2011. But the first sharrows that appeared as part of the new, improved Providence Bike Plan (that I saw) were on Olney Street between North Main and Arlington Street.

It’s easy to separate Olney Street into the part that’s west of Hope Street (WOH), and the part that’s east of Hope Street (EOH). WOH Olney is a wide street with a handful of multi-family houses, plus a high school, church, medical office building and a large apartment complex. EOH Olney is narrower and there are more single-family houses plus another church and the grounds of a different high school. On EOH Olney the traffic is relatively slow and calm. WOH Olney serves as a connector between Hope Street and North Main. There’s more traffic on WOH Olney and it’s moving faster (mostly well above the 25 MPH speed limit). There’s one thing that both WOH Olney and EOH Olney have in common, free parking on both sides of the street, on the entire street. The big difference, there are many cars parked EOH Olney, but very few parked on WOH Olney. But both WOH Olney and EOH Olney have sharrows.

On EOH Olney, the sharrows kind of make sense. It’s a a quiet residential neighborhood and people are driving their cars at reasonable speeds. It’s not heavily traveled by bikes or cars, and it’s relatively narrow.. But it is simply idiotic to have sharrows on WOH Olney. It’s easy to see this when you look at a picture of where the sharrows were painted.

Green arrows point to the sharrows.

If you can make out the sharrows in the picture above, you’ll note that they are right where the cars are driving. This means that the city wants cyclists to ride way out there rather than at the side of the street.

What’s the city’s excuse for not installing bike lanes on WOH Olney Street? Did they want to preserve parking for the homes and businesses on the street? All of these places have their own off-street parking. I’ve been up and down Olney many times and there’s hardly anyone parked on WOH Olney. Because there’s no one parked on the street, it doesn’t even make sense for cyclists to use the sharrows. If a cyclist were to use the sharrows when there are no cars parked on the street, she would be putting herself in the middle of the lane, which many motorists will interpret as blocking “their way.” Motorists will pass to the right of the cyclist, or go around to the left, or try to intimidate the cyclist into moving to the right. I’ve seen motorists pass other people in cars on WOH Olney, treating it like a 4-lane road rather than a 2-lane street. Instead of using the sharrows, most cyclists are going to ride close to the curb so the speeding motorists will pass them with plenty of room to spare. The city could have easily eliminated parking on this section of the street allowing for the creation of bike lanes in both directions. If they wanted a more parking-friendly solution, they could have put a bike lane on the eastbound side of the street (uphill, where the cyclists are going slower) and put in sharrows and allowed parking on the westbound side of the street. I’ve seen this configuration on wider streets in Seattle that were on large hills. We don’t even have to go all the way to Seattle to find something similar, Alfred Stone Road (at the northern end of Blackstone Blvd.) has bike lanes eastbound and sharrows westbound.

The description of sharrows in the Providence Bike Plan includes “SLMs can be used to connect short gaps between sections of bike lanes.” These sharrows on Olney aren’t connecting anything. They are just a cheap way for the city to look like it is installing bike infrastructure, when really it’s doing nothing.

Olney street was a the first place where I saw the bike plan put into action and it’s nothing but a disappointment. In recent months, I’ve seen sharrows go in on Hope Street, Thayer Street and Broad Street. Here they are on Broad Street:

Broad Street Sharrows

Hmm, what’s that to the right of the sharrow? It’s a completely unused parking lane!

If sharrows are meant to indicate where cyclists are supposed to ride, I suggest cyclists do exactly that – en masse. If the city wants to put in sharrows as part of their plan to encourage more cycling in the city, let’s show them what happens when many cyclists use this inferior cycling infrastructure at once. Let’s all ride on the sharrows as one big group and use them the way they were designed to be used.

I’m suggesting a semi-organized ride, along the lines of a critical mass, but with a few key differences. 1. We obey the letter of the law. No running lights, no riding two abreast. 2. We ride as safely as possible using the sharrows: stay out of the door zone, stay within the area defined by the sharrows. Are you interested in this? We could call it the “Sharrow Utilization Ride.” I’d call it the “Sharrow Appreciation Ride,” but I’m not sure if anyone would get the irony. I’m open to other suggestions for names.

[sidenote about the sharrows: it seems like they are all installed outside of the doorzone while the the Broadway bike lane is about 30-50% in the doorzone. What’s up with that?]

In a recent post, Transport PVD makes some interesting comparisons between the movement for marriage equality and the movement for safer bicycle infrastructure. In short, he argues that the State of Rhode Island is preventing Providence from installing better bike infrastructure. He says that much like San Francisco started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples to force California into addressing marriage equality, cities should install proper protected bike infrastructure in order to force the state to get with the times on what cities around the world are discovering: that good bike infrastructure is a good investment.

Sometimes an important part of a movement is a little bit of civil disobedience. I’ve shied away from writing about this for a number of reasons. One of them: right now there’s a much more important protest movement going on, and I don’t know if there’s room in the Providence mindspace for anything else. And it’s hard to say that bike lanes are as important as protesting against racial discrimination in police practices (and that’s a mild way of framing that issue).

But I’m sick of this shitty bike plan. Cities like Pittsburgh and even Kansas City are starting to put in better bike infrastructure than we are. Providence has the bones to be a potentially great city for biking. We just need to make a few kind-of tough decisions. Well, no, not really. Just one tough decision: we need to say that bike infrastructure is more important than overly abundant, under-utilized free parking.

It’s been a mild winter so far, but the real cold weather is about to start, so I don’t think we could organize a sharrow ride any time soon. Is anyone else interested in a mass demonstration of how useless these things are?

]]>https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/optimized-sharrow-usage/feed/3carfreepvdSharrow on GanoOlney Streetolney-sharrowsBroad Street SharrowsUn-American Cycling Part 1: Riding A Bike In Cambridge, Englandhttps://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/un-american-cycling-part-1-riding-a-bike-in-cambridge-england/
https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/un-american-cycling-part-1-riding-a-bike-in-cambridge-england/#commentsWed, 11 Jun 2014 02:23:29 +0000http://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/?p=1358Continue reading →]]>I recently traveled to a foreign country (no, not Canada, that doesn’t really count) and I rode several different bikes there. I have lived to tell the tale. I visited two cities in England: Cambridge and London. First, let’s take a look at Cambridge.

Cambridge is the home of The University of Cambridge. It’s old – 13th century old. The University is made up of many different “colleges” including Darwin College, where Spouse was attending a conference and I was lucky enough to tag along for a ride. Un-American fact #1 about The University of Cambridge: Darwin College? Darwin? You think that shit would fly in God’s United States? I don’t think so.

This is the logo for the Darwin College Student Association. Not only does it reference a godless idea like evolution, it also implies that some students may want to “walk in their own direction!”

Along with godless logos, there were also tons of beautiful old buildings all over the place. I probably should have taken a bunch of pictures of old stuff while I was there, but I always feel a little odd doing that. So, take a moment and go to your favorite internet search engine; type “University of Cambridge” and search images. Now look at all the pretty buildings for a few minutes and then come back here.

Nice, right?

Instead, I take pictures of bike stuff – even then, I should have taken more so I could capture the state of the “bike culture” there. So I’ll have to describe the bike culture using boring old words. Bikes are big in Cambridge. Estimates vary, but Cambridge may have the highest bike mode share of any city in the UK. Depending on who you believe, bicycle commuters make up somewhere between 20-30% of the people getting to work on a regular basis. (For g-d’s sake, don’t quote me on this, go find something authoritative). All I know is that bikes were everywhere. And while Cambridge is certainly a college town, it’s definitely not just University students who are riding bikes. I saw many bakfietsen out on the streets of Cambridge, usually piloted by a woman between the ages of 25 – 40, often with a small child or children riding happily in the box. Here’s a bakfiets parked at Darwin College:

Bakfiets at Darwin College

Even more popular than the bakfiets, I saw many tricycles that looked like a mashup between a bike and a jogging stroller. I’m pretty sure that I was looking at a Zigo Leader Bicycle. They all went by too fast for me to catch a picture, but once again, internet search engine image search comes in handy:

Parents riding around on bikes (or trikes, or whatever), carrying their kids – that’s definitely a sign of a healthy bike culture.

Aside from the abundance of dedicated child-portaging bikes, the bikes in use would not have looked out of place in an American city. That is to say, it was a collection of crappy old mountain bikes & hybrids with the occasional road bike, fixie bike, and BSO thrown in for good measure. The only difference is that the factories in China & Taiwan where these bikes were made put different names on the tubes depending on if they ship them to the US or the UK. Still, a BSO, is a BSO, even if you gussy it up with some fancy custom paint work.

This BSO sports a Rocky-inspired custom decal. APPROVED.

The streets are narrow in Cambridge. How narrow? Imagine that part of Benefit street that is really too narrow to be a two-way street with parking on one side. The part where cars have to pull to the side to let each other pass without hitting each other or the parked cars (but we’d never get rid of the free on-street parking, right?) The streets are even narrower than that.

There’s a fair amount of cycling infrastructure leading into the city center, but not much once you get there. Instead, cyclists navigate narrow streets along with buses and cars that pass very close. At first look, I was a little taken aback by how close the cars are when they pass cyclists. But, I wanted to try it for myself, so I rented (erm, hired) a bicycle for the day and set out.

Part of my bike from City Cycle Hire

I rented the bike from City Cycle Hire. It was a no-frills hybrid with a 3 by 6 drivetrain, but it had many features that are great for a hired bike in the city.

Fenders – important for a wet climate

Generator-operated lights – in case you want to get anywhere when the sun is not up

Chainguard – to protect your pants from getting grease stains

A rack – for carrying items that you might purchase

Integrated lock – so the bike doesn’t get stolen

Spouse was busy at a conference, so I had the whole day to explore the city. I had noticed a long, green bike path on the google map, so I set out in that general direction. It turned out to be a popular commuter route between Cambridge and the small village of St. Ives. The bike path went alongside a “guided busway” which is some sort of dedicated bus route where the buses seem to run automatically.

Cambridgeshire guided busway

The buses zoom along on the special road in between towns with no cars to get in their way, and once they get into town, they drive on the streets like a regular bus. It seems like a smart system that combines some of the best of a commuter rail with the best of a local bus service.

It seems to have been built on a railroad right-of-way, so the path was very flat. Unfortunately, it was also rather boring. Where were the subtle, majestic vistas of the English countryside? Certainly not on the 15 mile stretch of bike path between Cambridge and St. Ives. But there was a free-range chicken farm…

chicken farm outside Cambridge.

… and I’m always happy to take pictures of chickens.

The bike path ended at the town of St. Ives. What can I say about St. Ives? I’ll just say that not every small English town is picturesque. I turned around and headed back, and that’s when I noticed that I’d had a slight tailwind on my way out, and now it was hitting my square in the face. I plowed into the wind as best I could, and made it back to the cycle hire store with a few minutes to spare before they closed.

City Cycle Hire was closed the next day, but I found another pleasant little cycle hire shop in the middle of Cambridge. This bike was not quite as nice as the one I had the day previous, but it was serviceable enough. It had finders, wide tires, and a simple 1 X 7 derailleur drivetrain. Before heading out, I stopped near the University to take a few pictures of how people lock their bikes in Cambridge, that is to say, barely.

Many of the bikes I saw were simply locked to themselves. An enterprising thief could just roll up in a van and pile all the bikes in there and cut the locks at his leisure. (We’re in England here, so be sure to pronounce “leisure” as “LEH-zhur.”) In many cases, the bikes were just propped up next to a wall with the lock casually stuck through a wheel. I thought I had seen some of the worst bike racks in the world, but in Cambridge, they have bike parking facilities that seem to come from the Middle Ages:

That’s a bike rack?

I guess the ring in front of the wheel slot is for Ye Olde Bi-cycle Chaine Locke or something. Here’s how people use these today:

Aghast at the state of bike locking in England’s Bike-friendliest City, I set out along the River Cam. I started out on a popular recreational bike path:

Picturesque as all get out, right? How about this:

Because I was traveling in a foreign land, I only had access to the magic of google maps while I was in range of a friendly wi-fi signal. While I was out on the road, I used a map app I had downloaded to my smartphone. It seemed to indicate a bike route along much of the River Cam. However, the map made little distinction between a bike path and a foot path. After a few miles, the bike path ran out and I found myself on this:

not exactly paved

Not that I’m complaining, it was actually kind of fun. I’ve always wanted to take a trip on England’s famous network of public footpaths, but that seems like a very slow way to travel. Now I’ve had just a little glimpse of the footpath network and it was pretty sweet. I do realize that they are called “footpaths,” but I didn’t see a sign that said “no bikes allowed” so I just kept going and figured I’d play the dumb foreign tourist card if anyone was upset. I did see this great sign:

Although the route was scenic, riding on the footpath is slow going. Each property has a fence with a complicated gate. It’s not too hard get through on foot, but fitting a bike through was rather difficult. There were also people using the footpath for walking. I would excuse myself as I passed them, apologizing for forcing them to move over on the path. The footpath ramblers would apologize right back at me. It was practically Canadian. Unfortunately, I got to a sign that said “no bikes allowed” and it was on private property, so I decided to turn back.

In the next installment of UnAmerican Cycling, I’ll tell you about the wonders of using a bike share scheme in London. That makes it sound so sinister.

]]>https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/un-american-cycling-part-1-riding-a-bike-in-cambridge-england/feed/1carfreepvddcsa-logoBakfiets at Darwin Collegezigo_leaderBicycle Shaped ObjectPart of my bike from City Cycle HireCambridgeshire guided buswaychicken farm outside Cambridge.bike locked in CambridgeThat's a bike rack?bike in the slotRiver Camcanal lock on River Camnot exactly pavedfree range chicken signIt’s getting real in the Whole Foods parking lothttps://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/its-getting-real-in-the-whole-foods-parking-lot/
https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/its-getting-real-in-the-whole-foods-parking-lot/#commentsThu, 10 Apr 2014 02:43:20 +0000http://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/?p=1367Continue reading →]]>Complaining, whining, moaning, being a jerk. Sure, we all do it. And does it get us anywhere?

Good times there, right? I’ve seen snow piled up on a bike rack before, but this was particularly egregious. Every car parking spot in the lot was cleared. Not a spot of snow to get in the way of people parking their cars. So where to put that snow? Well, let’s just dump it on top of the bike rack. Evidently, fellow Providence bike-twitterer, @papabybike was displeased as well. But instead of just dropping a snarky tweet like me, he went in and talked to the manager about it. After a few other tweets, I hear through the grapevine that this particular Whole Foods was planning to install a new bike rack in April. Well it’s April now, and what do you know? Check it out:

Now that is some quality bike parking! Sure, there’s only 4 hoops, but there’s lots of room in between them and it looks like it will easily accommodate 8 bikes parked there at once. In fact, there’s so much room, you could park a cargo bike there!

photo credit: @papabybike

Other Providence bike twiterrers were pleased to see the rack as well.

I realize that this blog is full of snark, cynicism and negativity, but I’ll try to suspend that for a moment and just say THANK YOU, to the management of this particular Whole Foods for taking the time to install a bike rack that looks like it was actually designed by people who ride bikes. It may have taken a while, but they got it right.

Now, what do we have to do to get Eastside Marketplace to install a decent bike rack?

That rack is so bad, the NEXT bike doesn’t even want to lock to it. I mean, I’ve seen better bike parking in a video game that’s based on the idea of stealing cars and running over people with them.

You begin your column by setting the scene with a look at what I guess is your daily commute.

“As Boston traffic inched forward during a recent rush-hour snowstorm, a cyclist scooted in front of my car. His back wheel skidded on the icy street, but he righted the bike and cruised across two more lanes of oncoming automobiles.

First of all, why is traffic only inching forward? Maybe it’s all of those cars that are in your way, am I right? I’m sure the snow has something to do with it too. People seem to freak out when there’s a little bit of snow on the ground. I’m a little confused about your description of the scene. You say the cyclist “cruised across two more lanes of oncoming automobiles.” Are these two lanes of autos inching along as well? Is it a gridlock situation, or did he force the drivers to stop while he crossed in front of them? If he forced other people to stop, that’s a real dick move, in my opinion (not to mention dangerous and illegal). Was he going the wrong way up a one-way street? If it’s a gridlock situation, how did this harm any of the motorists stuck in traffic? This is the opening scene of your column, yet I can’t tell what you are trying to say. And what do you mean by your follow up?

Naturally, he wore no helmet.

How is this relevant? If he had been wearing a helmet would he have been able to get those other cars out of your way? What does wearing a helmet have to do with you being stuck in a traffic jam?

Why does your helmet observation make up its own one-sentence paragraph?

There’s hostility on both sides. A recent encounter between a driver and cyclist on Commonwealth Avenue that went viral after it was captured by camera on a cyclist’s helmet attests to that. The driver was straddling the bike line. The cyclist didn’t like it. Profanity flowed.

“The cyclist didn’t like it.” Do you want to guess why the cyclist didn’t like it? We often encounter drivers like this guy who edge into (or just outright drive in) the bike line. It’s not a matter of convenience, it’s a matter of being endangered by reckless people operating 4,000 lb machines that could kill someone. I’d say the cyclist showed great restraint with just a bit of profanity after dealing with this driver’s anti-social, malicious behavior. “There’s hostility on both sides.” No, there’s people trying to get somewhere using a variety of methods. Some of them are jerks. The jerks who drive cars are far more dangerous to other people than the jerks who ride bikes.

Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I would feel terrible if my car door knocked down a cyclist. But there’s something about a guy waving his middle finger as he hurtles against traffic on a one-way street that brings out the anti-bike in me.

Did you catch that? “I would feel terrible if my car door knocked down a cyclist.” Does your car door have agency? Does it randomly open on its own? If so, you might want to get that checked. If not, let me fix that sentence for you “Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I would feel terrible if I knocked down a cyclist with my car door.” Makes more sense, right? I’m sure this is what you meant, right? I would also feel terrible if I hit someone with a car door, or any other part of a car (I still drive every once in a while). But you know what, it’s pretty easy to avoid. Before opening a car door, I turn and look over my shoulder to see if anyone is coming. That way I can be sure I won’t hit anyone with the car door. You should try it too.

“But there’s something about a guy waving his middle finger as he hurtles against traffic on a one-way street that brings out the anti-bike in me.” I lived and biked (and drove a car) in Boston for 4 1/2 years and somehow I never saw the middle-finger waving wrong-way cyclist. I also never saw him in 2 years of living in Edmonton or 6 1/2 years living in Providence. Nor have I seen him in the many cities I’ve traveled to. Yet anti-bike columnists seem to always be running into him. Maybe Vennochi is right. Maybe it’s an encounter with this rare creature that turns someone against bikes. Mythical creatures are known to have magical powers. If you have actually encountered this beast, then let me apologize on behalf of all cyclists. We try to control the jerks as best we can, but guys like this just don’t show up to our meetings. I’ve encountered many jerks driving cars (including going the wrong way down a one way street, driving right at me) and yet I’m not anti-car.

I’m kind of confused by this comparison:

But envision the typical man tailgating you in a pickup truck because he thinks you’re not driving fast enough. Now imagine him on a bicycle, propelled by the same attitude.

Unlike your opening paragraph, I think I can picture what you’re talking about, but I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. I can visualize driving a car with a jerk tailgating me in a pickup truck. This has happened to me many times. If I have to stop quickly, he won’t have time to react and hit the brakes. This means he could rear-end my car causing significant damage, injury or death. Tailgating me also means he’s more likely to get rear-ended. Now I’m imagining someone on a bicycle tailgating me while I’m driving a car. Okay, that’s a bad idea on his part, but it’s not particularly intimidating to me. If I have to stop quickly, the cyclist could rear-end me causing at most a scratch to the car I’m driving. The cyclist could end up with a wheel that looks like a taco shell, or he could fall and hurt himself. In short, if this jerk is tailgating while driving a pickup truck, he’s potentially deadly, if he’s tailgating while riding a bike, you might get a scratch.

You wrapped up the column with this gem:

Traffic jams haunt the city. On narrow, clogged streets, jaywalking pedestrians add to the chaos — and so do bikers.

It’s not the pedestrians or the cyclists creating the traffic jams that “haunt” the city. It’s people driving cars.

Thanks to twitter user @nicolegelinas for pointing out the Vennochi column in question (and thanks to @miller_stephen for retweeting).

]]>https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/joan-vennochis-recent-column-in-the-boston-globe/feed/2carfreepvd2013: The Year In Pictureshttps://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/2013-the-year-in-pictures/
https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/2013-the-year-in-pictures/#commentsTue, 31 Dec 2013 17:45:40 +0000http://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/?p=1323Continue reading →]]>This week marks the return of The New York Times‘ “Year In Pictures” feature which takes over the Sunday Review this time of year so that we don’t have to read “humorous” pieces complaining about the color blue. Inspired by the old gray lady and hoping to cash in on some of the year-end fever for listicles of pictures (pisticles?), here’s the CarFree in PVD 2013 Picture Round-up. I promise it won’t be as depressing as the NYT’s pictures of disasters and wars from around the world. Unless you’re like me and you get depressed by pictures of poorly-designed bike racks.

Let’s start things off right with a picture of a bike rack I use all too often, the Whole Foods Market on Waterman Street in Providence:

So, what are we going to do with all of the snow in this parking lot? I know, let’s just dump it in front of the bike rack, no one will know the difference. I shouldn’t complain since it’s only the spots on the end of the rack that are useful at all. This reminds me, back in August, this particular Whole Foods proudly announced some new picnic tables they were installing:

I only gave them a “favorite” and a “retweet” but I refused to give them a woo-hoo for I only give woo-hoos to successfully installed bike racks. I’m still holding onto that woohoo, because it’s 5 months later and still no sign of a new bike rack. And now I feel dirty for giving them that “favorite.” They used me.

Enough griping (for now, more griping to follow). Here’s a pic from a solo ride I took in February up into the wooded hills to the northwest of Providence:

Just an example of one of the beautiful places you can ride to in our little state.

We had a serious blizzard later that month, fortunately, I was ready for it with a pair of metal-studded tires on Spouse’s old MTB.

When getting ready to bike in a blizzard, one must not only prepare one’s bike, one must also prepare oneself:

Looking at the rainy streets right now, It’s kind of hard to imagine that they looked like this almost a year ago:

I took a trip to Austin in March where I found that they have some pretty good bike infrastructure. However, they also have things like this marked as a “bike path” on their official bike map:

To give them credit, sometimes I’d prefer to ford a small stream than deal with Rhode Island drivers. Maybe bike paths like these are just a way of encouraging Texas cyclists to pull themselves up by they bootstraps (or their granny gears, as the case may be):

Now that’s some bicycle infrastructure, Texas-style!

(to be fair, Austin has created more and better bike infrastructure in recent years than Providence has).

In other bike-parking news, The Hope Artiste Village installed this bike rack early in the year:

I spent several days in Seattle this year. AND IT WAS SUNNY THE WHOLE TIME! Spouse and I rented bikes for a day (but neglected to take any pictures). If you are visiting Seattle and looking to rent a passable road bike, I’d recommend Recycled Cycles where you can pick up an aluminum late-model Raleigh with a Shimano 105 group for $30/day. Or you can hang out at a coffee shop early in the morning and wait for this guy to show up with his custom Vanilla:

Yep, that’s a hand-built, highly sought after custom bicycle, casually left unlocked while the guy buys his hand-brewed, single-origin coffee. And when I say highly sought-after, I’m not kidding around. The waiting list to get a Vanilla currently stands at 5 years.

Oh wait, I’m sorry, the waiting list was over 5 years long in June 2011, the last time Sacha White bothered to update this webpage! So, go ahead, leave that bike unlocked, no big whoop.

In more good news, I took two century rides this year. The first one was to Plymouth and back. To prove to you that I rode my bike the whole way there, here’s a picture of Plymouth:

And here’s a picture of my cyclometer after completing the ride (plus 8.28 bonus miles)

I also took part in the Narragansett Bay Wheelmen’s The Flattest Century in the East. I have to say, TFCE seemed significantly less flat than the Plymouth Century. I’m glad I did though. TFCE had three, well-staffed rest breaks and a rest area at the end. Plus there’s something about going on a long ride with about 3,000 other riders. It’s a very well-run event and I hope I can do it every year.

So that was two 100-plus mile rides with hardly any pictures to show for it. I also went on a long solo ride to Killingly, CT and back.

I recently discovered that there’s a new section of the Woonasquatucket Bike Path. Somehow I missed when it was introduced – guess that’s what I get for skipping the Woonie Ride this year. It’s a short section, but it’s nice and it helps cyclists avoid a little more of the city streets.

The new section runs behind Rising Sun Mills, and there’s event a little bit of left over old mill stuff lying about.

Back in October, I came upon this bike casually parked on Steeple Street.

What’s this?!? It’s the same bike as mine! Although it is a little smaller, and it has a very ugly bottle holder, and it appears to have almost all of its original components which means its owner isn’t riding enough. This is a 2005 Cannondale Road Warrior 400 (although it doesn’t say “Road Warrior” anywhere on the bike – it does say “Cannondale” six times). Since I bought mine in 2005 I have replaced the following:

It’s a good old bike, still does just about everything I need it to do.

It will even haul a Christmas tree.

One last item: The Providence Bicycle Plan was released this fall and I never got to write about it (although James over at Transport PVD has covered the topic pretty well). It was a busy period at work, blah blah blah. It’s one of those things where I feel like I could spend a long time taking down the bike plan point-by-point, but I don’t think that will really accomplish much. Plus, I didn’t get to attend much on the presentations of it due to other work-related reasons. So, my very simple analysis of the Providence Bike Plan: there’s not much there. Nothing ambitious, nothing that’s really going to change much of anything, nothing exciting. Cities across the country have started to realize that they need to make a serious investment in cycling infrastructure, but what do we get in Providence? Just some sharrows here and there, maybe a few more bike lanes. We have a good selection of bike racks in downtown Providence, but no commitment to bike parking in the other retail sectors of our city. For example, you can ride the entire length of Allens Avenue and not see a single bike rack (although you’ll see several restaurants providing valet parking for their car-driving customers).

Meanwhile, in a fictional universe where you can grab any car off the street and drive it as fast as you like, slamming into cars and running over pedestrians without consequence…

… you’ll find ample, well-designed bike racks.

]]>https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/2013-the-year-in-pictures/feed/0carfreepvdIMG_1432Log Road, Rhode Islandmetal studded bike tiresready for the blizzard bikeblizzard bike in actionAustin Texas bike pathAustin Texas bike pathHope Artiste Village bike rackrecycle-a-bike bike valetrecycle-a-bike and cleverhoodNew Haven bike parkingbike kalecustom vanillaVanilla Bicycles Waiting ListPlymouth MassachusettsMy first century plus 8.28NBW TFCEslow childrenThis Bike Climbed Jerimoth Hill (almost)Woonasquatucket Bike Pathmill bits and piecesdoppelganger bikeChristmas tree on the bikeGTA V bike parkingThe Indignity of Bike Parking: Trader Joe’shttps://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/the-indignity-of-bike-parking-trader-joes/
https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/the-indignity-of-bike-parking-trader-joes/#commentsTue, 15 Oct 2013 02:43:31 +0000http://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/?p=1300Continue reading →]]>I was first introduced to the wonders of Trader Joe’s when I was bachelor living in Boston. And what could be better for the Bostonian bachelor? Cheap eats, ready to easily cook and with a patina of responsible consumerism. Or something, I’m not sure what the vibe in that place is supposed to be – “funky”? “quirky”? “beach-y”? Also, there’s cheap wine.

But I am no longer a bachelor, and I no longer enjoy Trader Joe’s version of a Meal Ready to Eat. But I do still like their trail mixes, which make for an essential work-time snack. Plus, the Rhode Island location is just off of one of our major bike paths – the Washington Secondary Bike Path (also known as the Cranston Bike Bath, Warwick Bike Path, West Warwick Bike Path and finally, the Coventry Bike Path. [and another thing, where’s the Washington Primary Bike Path?])

You can see there’s even a little spur heading out to Bald Hill Road. Of course, Bald Hill Road is a bit of a nightmare as far as cycling is concerned.

The beauty that is Bald Hill Road in Warwick, RI

Oh my gosh, I think there’s actually someone walking on the sidewalk on the left!

So it’s a big crappy road, whatever, it does have a very wide shoulder, and you’re not on it very long before you get to Trader Joe’s. And what do you find when you get there? Nothing in the way of bike parking. About a year ago, I asked the manager if they were ever going to install any bike parking. He said, “oh yeah, we have a rack on order, it should be here in a couple of months.” All right, that sounds like kind of a long time to wait, but I can understand if it takes a little while to source and install a bike rack, right? Well, I stopped at TJ’s today and I see that the months of waiting got us this:

Bike Rack at Trader Joe’s Warwick RI

I moved the rack a few feet in order to get a better picture. It’s not secured to anything, and it weighs about 25-30 pounds (i.e., about as much as a bicycle). You can buy one of these online for a little over $100. There are very similar models made by a variety of companies, I didn’t look closely enough to see which company made this one, but it looks essentially identical to this one. From the product description:

Parks up to 6 bikes.
Perfect for home and small businesses. Set it up outside or in a garage or basement to park a family of bikes.
Assembles in minutes.
Lightweight yet surprisingly solid. Durable and weatherproof. Welded frame with one-peice and sections. [sic]
Can be anchored in lawns, concrete, or asphalt using Anchors #6257 and #6258 (Sold separately).

See that? “Parks up to 6 bikes.” It doesn’t say anything about locking the bikes to this thing (here’s a hint – you can’t properly lock a bike to it!) “Perfect for home and small business… set it up in a garage…” Yes, exactly. I have one of these in my garage. I use it to store three of my bikes. The anchors are sold separately, and they were evidently just a little too expensive for TJ’s budget.

What Trader Joe’s should have installed was something more like this.

A decent bike rack

You can pick these up for $430 (plus $19 for the mounting kit) right here.

Oh, what do you know? I found a few of these, right on the WSBP! Check it out:

WSBP bike rack

First of all, this rack is installed RIGHT NEXT TO A FENCE which means you can’t fit your wheel through the loops. Secondly, it’s installed right next to a parking lot. There is nothing within walking distance. Why would anyone park lock a bike here? There’s nowhere to go once you get off the bike. There are several more of these “wave” bike racks along the WSBP, usually right next to a little park bench. I guess the idea is that you might want to take a rest from riding your bike, so you stop at one of these benches and use the bike rack to lock up your bike while you are 3 feet away from it. This seems to be a trend, in this state at least. A few years ago, I discovered the most useless bike rack in the state in Woonsocket. That one won’t even fit a 700c wheel!

I guess I could lead a cyclists’ boycott of Trader Joe’s, but what would that accomplish? This bike rack makes it pretty clear that cyclists are not wanted in their store. Until I organize a boycott of TJ’s, I’ll just boycott their bullshit bike rack:

I turn my red tire to TJ’s bike rack like a baboon turns his red butt to his enemy

I almost went in to have a discussion with the manager about this so-called bike rack, but I was wearing my “sporty cycling attire” that is, really tight bike shorts and jersey, so I wasn’t feeling that dignified. Maybe next time. IF THERE IS A NEXT TIME! Hear that TJ’s? You can kiss my occasional trail mix money goodbye!

]]>https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/the-indignity-of-bike-parking-trader-joes/feed/4carfreepvdWashington Secondary Bike Path and Trader Joe'sThe beauty that is Bald Hill Road in Warwick, RIBike Rack at Trader Joe's Warwick RIA decent bike rackWSBP bike rackI turn my red tire to TJ's bike rack like a baboon turns his red butt to his enemyFertile Underground Bicycle RackI’m an avid driverhttps://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/im-an-avid-driver/
https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/im-an-avid-driver/#commentsSat, 10 Aug 2013 18:54:24 +0000http://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/?p=1298Continue reading →]]>Many people use the phrase “avid cyclist” to describe basically anyone who rides a bike for transportation. Alternately, an avid cyclist can be someone who puts on special clothing more than once a year and rides their bike for more than 10 miles in one day. And if you are someone who does both of these things, then you are definitely an “avid cyclist.” There are those in the bicycle advocacy world (such as Mikael Druker of the blog Psytenance) who do not like the phrase because they feel it marginalizes those who ride bikes:

…labelling those who willingly cycle as “avid cyclists” is a way of setting aside the difficult and interesting problem of how to make our cities conducive to cycling — in favor of the easy story of cycling as something “other”, as something done by people who aren’t normal. Why bother making the city a better place to cycle if the only people who will do it are the ones who are already cyclists?

Sure, okay. I guess I pretty much agree with that. Using the phrase as an advocate is not the best position.

But, I’m not sure if I’ll go to the step of banishing the phrase from my vocabulary, because sometimes it just fits. Within a few minutes of meeting me, I may be tempted to bore you with talk about cycling, bikes, infrastructure, and the overall indignity of bicycle parking. I’ve been commuting by bike for over a decade now, and for the last 8 years, I’ve done it in every type of weather imaginable. I also enjoy a long ride on my road bike, when I have the time. (I guess this blog is evidence of my cycling avidity as well). By all accounts, I am an avid cyclist.

I sold my car about 4 years ago, and since that time, I’ve tried to keep track of the miles of biked as well as the miles I travel by car. In the last 12 months, I’ve traveled approximately 3,100 miles by bicycle. But by zipcar, traditional rental car, or borrowing a friend’s car, I’ve traveled 4,200 miles driving and an additional 200 miles riding in a car as a passenger.

So, I guess I’m an avid driver, too.

As I approach Carfree-niversary #4, my goal for the next year of car-free living is to ride 3,650 miles in 12 months from August 2013 through July 2014. That would mean an average of 10 miles per day. I’m doing good so far, I rode my first century on August 5th, and along with my usual commute and shopping, I’m already at 150 miles of cycling. However, I’ve taken a few car trips too, and I’m up to 156 miles in that column.

(or 8 words, depending on how you look at it). Because of this awesome tweet, I won a sweet helmet light system from Light & Motion, courtesy of Bike Safe Boston.

Selle-Anatomica recently had a twitter drawing for one of their perineum-friendly seats. I like a good perineum-friendly seat as much as the next guy (possibly more), so I was happy to enter. But you know who won?

Oh well, Bike Safe Boston giveth, and he taketh away.

Speaking of contests, BikeSnobNYC recently held his kinda-annual cockpit photography contest. (I believe he calls it the “cock-off.”) For those of you who are not insufferable bike dorks like me, “cockpit” refers to the handlebar area and all of the crap that a bike dork can cram onto it. The prize for the cock-off is a couple of lights. It would be unfair of me to compete for a prize that I clearly do not need, so I will present my contest entry only in this venue.

I present to you, the greatest use of duct tape on a bicycle cockpit:

I am truly impressed with how the duct tape is fully integrated into the cockpit. Not only that, but the pilot of this cockpit has included an entire roll of duct tape – I’m assuming this is for any additional repairs that may need to be performed on the road.

truly spectacular

Not only does has this bicycle’s pilot developed a way to take a roll of duct tape with him where ever he goes, there’s even a small decorative element. Hanging down from the right side of the handlebar is a small curl of duct tape, hanging proudly like a silver peyos.

In other news, I was boring yet another friend with the tale of how I won my helmet light when he whipped out his home-rolled helmet light:

He even put a tail light on there…

…attached with duct tape, of course.

]]>https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/my-new-favorite-cockpit/feed/0carfreepvdSee you at the next lightbike safe boston foils me again!bike with duct tape handlebarsduct tape handlebars with peyosserious bicycle helmet lightbicycle helmet tail lightProduct Review: Light and Motion VIS 360https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/product-review-light-and-motion-vis-360/
https://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/product-review-light-and-motion-vis-360/#commentsThu, 11 Oct 2012 01:11:06 +0000http://carfreepvd.wordpress.com/?p=1262Continue reading →]]>I believe that this post may qualify as my first product review*, but I’m not quite sure. The problem is that I don’t actually read my own blog, I just type it. As soon as a sentence has left my fingertips, I scroll down and never look at it again. I like to think of it as a way to keep things fresh and always moving forward so that my reader(s) can experience this blog in the same way I write it: sporadically.

Moving on.

Back in early September, Josh Zisson, bicycle lawyer of Boston, and proprietor of the excellent BikeSafeBoston.com announced a twitter hashtag contest. Josh challenged his followers thusly:

“To enter, you need only post a tweet that includes the following hashtag: #DearDrivers.

The idea is that you’re writing a letter to drivers, along the lines of #DearDrivers, please don’t forget about me when you’re making that right turn. Love, bikers.

Simple, right?

Politeness and humor are encouraged, and the best tweet gets the lights.

Good luck!

Yours,

Josh”

And here is my winning entry:

Yes, beautiful in its simplicity, my tweet captures the smugness and snark you have come to expect from Car Free in PVD. But truly, I think that it conveys something else, something that Mr. Zisson described in his on-line announcement that I had won the contest:

It’s simple and to the point, and there’s a friendly cheerfulness to it that I quite enjoy.

I also like the hint of pride in his certainty. Cars may be able to get off the line a little quicker, but at the end of the day, a bike in traffic can usually get there just as fast as a car (and sometimes even faster).

The prize for this contest was a Light & Motion VIS 360 helmet lighting system, as seen here mounted on my helmet worn by a pillow shaped like popular public radio personality, The Head of Carl Kassel:

Here I am trying on the light while doing my best Scarlett Johansson impersonation:

And here it is in the package:

It has a USB rechargeable battery in the taillight, which is connected to the headlight by a springy, coiled cable. The headlight has three settings: high, low, & flashing. Along with the very bright headlight, there are two small yellow LEDs on the side of the headlight body to aid in visibility for vehicles approaching from the side. The taillight can only be set to flashing. Along with the three LEDs, the taillight also has reflective material to catch the headlights of the vehicle behind you.

I’ve been using the light for about a month now, so I have a few impressions to share.

My standard light system is a Planet Bike Blaze 2W headlight (mounted on my handlebars), and a Planet Bike Superflash tailight (mounted on my rack). The Blaze 2W is a great light, I wrote about it more after someone stole my first light. I usually use the headlight in flash mode where it blinks several times at low light, then once at super-high level. It seems to do a good job of getting motorists attention. Most of my night-time riding is well-lit by streetlights, so I need a lighting system that will allow me to be seen by others more than something that will light the way. I’ve been quite happy with my Planet Bike set-up.

Until now.

The Light & Motion helmet set up is hella-bright. There are probably some numbers I could list about lumens and what not, but when I run both the Blaze and VIS 360 side by side, I can see that the VIS 360 is brighter. The cone of light it creates is also wider than the Blaze. Even when I point the concentrated beam of light down, I can see the “halo” portion of the light catch reflective street signs -another aid to motorist visibility. Along with being a brighter light, there are some inherent advantages to having a light on your head rather than on your handlebars. First, when you turn your head to look at something, it’s lit up! Sure it sounds simple, but it is kind of fun to use one’s head as a turret, scanning back and forth on the road, looking for potholes, debris etc. Although my flashing taillight does a good job of attracting the attention of motorists behind me, there’s nothing like turning one’s head to show motorists that there is a real human being ahead of them. One more thing I like: the helmet light makes for an effective defensive “weapon.” There have been a few times now where a motorist was about to pull out in front of me. Although I have the light pointed at the ground about 8 feet ahead of me, all I have to do is flick my head up a little bit and BAM! the offending motorist gets a quick flash of light. I probably have more fun doing this than I should.

The VIS 360 is not without problems.

Here’s a picture from the Light & Motion website. Everything looks solid: the taillight is mounted on the back, the headlight is mounted up front. Things are not working out as well with my helmet:

Here it is mounted on the middle beam at the back of my helmet. There’s a plastic tab on the inside of my helmet (part of the helmet’s strap system) that prevents me from mounting the taillight in the middle of the helmet. So I tried the lower beam:

Down here it just flops around. There are a couple of problem with the mounting system. First of all, the bracket is optimized for helmets that are mostly round on the back. Many helmets are like mine: they come to a point in the back to aid in the appearance of aerodynamics. The bracket just won’t sit flush on this sort of point. But this isn’t the worst design problem. The big problem is that the velcro attachment strap is far too long.

The strap has both “hook” and “loop” sections of velcro on it and they are designed to overlap in order to secure the rear bracket. My helmet seems to be of a standard thickness, but I’ve tried many different ways of setting up the velcro and no matter what I do, it overlaps in a less-than-optimal way – that is, a loop section of the strap is overlapping with another loop section so that the velcro is not fully engaged. I don’t think that it is in danger of immediately falling off, but it doesn’t feel secure. The mounting kit came with a second velcro strap, but it was identical in design to the first. Since this kit fits so poorly on a very common Giro helmet, I think Light & Motion needs to refine their mounting kit a little bit, and at the very least provide two different velcro straps – one for thick helmets and one for thinner helmets like mine.

Here’s the taillight mounted to Spouse’s helmet, where the bracket mounts pretty flush, but the velcro straps are still too long:

You can also see the reflective properties of the light (and Spouse’s helmet)

One other thing, the price. My current light set-up retails for about $90 ($60 for the headlight, $30 for the taillight). The VIS 360 retails for $149. It’s a quality product, and I plan on using it regularly, but that $100 barrier is pretty hard for me to break for a lighting system. And since one could buy a complete “road bike” for $159 (but please, for the love of all that is holy, do not buy that bike), I can’t imagine that high-end lights like this are anything more than a niche product. But, maybe for a commuter with a much longer ride than mine, this sort of investment makes sense.

There are some other factors to consider before getting a helmet light that are just inherent to a helmet light. A great thing is that I can just throw on my one helmet and hop on whichever bike I want to ride. Currently, I have to move my lights around from bike to bike – not a huge hassle since I bought extra mounts for each bike. The flipside of that is the fact that I now have to take my helmet with me when I park my bike at a store. I used to just leave it on my bike (but I removed my Blaze headlight). Just a slight drawback to having a helmet light.

Also, it looks super dorky, but I’m pretty much beyond worrying about how dorky I look.

Final verdict for this review: I like the light, I plan on using it all the time. However, it needs significant improvements to the mounting system. For some people, the price point might be just right, it certainly performs better than my $90 system. For others, $150 is a lot to spend on a bike light.

*One could consider my early post “Spongy Wonderful” to be a product review, but that was a long time ago.

Friends, this is too important to merely tweet. I was walking in downtown Providence (or downcity, or… whatevs), when I came upon this scene:

The mainstream media may be afraid to report this, but it’s obvious, the nudist rollerblader rapture has begun.

May god have mercy on our souls.

In other news, I wore out the front rim on my 6-year-old commuter bike. The brakes were feeling a little funny and then….

BLAM!!! My rim exploded. I was quite surprised. And now I know what it feels like when a rim is about to go.

——

UPDATE !

I should explain what it feels like when a rim is about to blow: The rim begins to warp and I could feel it in the brakes – they sort of “pulsed” as I slowed down. As it got worse, the brake lever would actually move as the brake calipers went over the more warped sections of the rim. Since the rim material is so thin, there isn’t enough of it to hold the shape of the rim so it also starts getting far out of true. I could see my wheel start to wobble a little and I thought “I guess I need to bring it into the shop soon and get this wheel trued.” The brakes were pulsing a little bit, then they started pulsing more and more.. and then BLAM! I was on Commonwealth Ave in Boston at the time which can be a very busy street. Fortunately, I was in a bike lane, going about 10 MPH and there wasn’t much traffic. I was able to slow down using just my rear brake and pull over to check out the damage. There were some surprised pedestrians on the sidewalk who asked, “Did you just get hit?” “No,” I replied, “I just blew out my rim!”